Joe Zadeh, Airbnb presentation at Lean Startup SXSW, Austin

1. Joe Zadeh
@joebot

3. Today

4. NIGHTS BOOKED
5 million
4 million
3 million
2 million
1 million
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

5. THE STORY OF AIRBNB PHOTOGRAPHY
(GROWTH WITHIN GROWTH)

6. NIGHTS BOOKED
5 million
4 million
3 million
2 million
SXSW ’08
1 million
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

7. NIGHTS BOOKED
5 million
4 million
3 million
2 million
the story starts here
1 million
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

8. CHAPTER 1.
Go to where your users are.

9. Today

10. 2009

11. CHAPTER 2.
Do things that don’t scale.

14. CHAPTER 3.
Establish your hypotheses.

15. VALUE: Hosts with professional photography will
get more business.
GROWTH: Hosts will sign up for it.

16. CHAPTER 4.
Build a concierge MVP.

17. Concierge MVP
Receives
Host Accepts Offer Schedules Facilitates Completion
Email
Recruits Uploads to Pays via
Concierge photographer
Recruits hosts Assigns Shoot
Listing PayPal
Installs Uploads to Receives
Photographer Schedules Shoots
Dropbox Dropbox Payment

18. CHAPTER 5.
Measure.

19. VALUE HYPOTHESIS: TRUE
Professionally photographed listings get 2-3X
more bookings than the market average!

20. GROWTH HYPOTHESIS: TRUE
Hosts are wildly enthusiastic to receive the offer.

21. NIGHTS BOOKED
5 million
4 million
3 million
20 photographers
2 million
1 million
2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

22. CHAPTER 6.
Build.

23. AIRBNB PHOTOGRAPHY
Requests Receives cleans Receives
Host Photography Schedules Facilitates
confirmation space Confirmation
Makes offer to hosts in market
Resurrects Assignment Receives Listing
System Notifier
backlog Algorithm Confirmation Updated
Fills out Receives Receives
Photographer Reassignment Schedules Shoots Uploads
profile assignment Payment
Reassignment
Flags
Operations Recruits photographer
Monitors Pays
Coordinator photographer and sets rate
(USD)

24. AUTHENTICATION
GEOCODING
EXISTING CODE → USER PROFILES
PHOTO UPLOADER
EMAIL NOTIFICATION

25. EMAIL MARKETER
RECRUITER
CONCIERGE →
QUALITY CONTROL
SUPPORT

26. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

27. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

28. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

29. CHAPTER 7.
Measure.

30. BUILD A DASHBOARD

31. LOOK AT ALL TYPES OF DATA
Host email conversion (high)
Photoshoot turn-around (fast)
Photographer decline rate (low)
% of listings covered (low)

32. If we could automate payments to photographers,
we could spend more time recruiting.

33. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

34. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

35. CHAPTER 8.
Iterate.

36. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

37. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

38. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

39. CHAPTER 9.
Change requirements... and break the whole site.

40. “Let’s watermark our images.”

41. “Make sure the original is >12
Megapixels.”

42. “Let’s have our Customer Support team offer
Photography when someone calls in.”

43. “Let’s start turning off listings without photos
(when there’s a photographer nearby).”

44. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

45. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

46. CHAPTER 10.
Bigger scale means different tools.

48. CHAPTER 11.
Scale the operations team.

49. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

50. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

51. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

52. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

53. SHOOTS PER MONTH
5000
3750
2500
1250
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

54. CITIES PER MONTH
1500
1125
750
375
0
Dec Feb Apr Jun Aug Oct Dec Feb
2011 2012

55. CHAPTER 12.
Enjoy the view.

56. San Francisco

57. Brooklyn

58. Vermont

59. Mexico

60. London

61. Milan

62. Portugal

63. Thailand

64. Mumbai

65. Austin

66. Austin

67. 1500 cities
35,000 shoots
500,000 photos
it all starts by meeting your users.

68. Thank you!